BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TRIES TO FURTHER BALKANIZE AMERICANS: OMB has decided to make America’s arbitrary racial classifications even more arbitrary by turning the multi-racial Hispanic ethnic classification into a racial one, and to add a new and entirely incoherent Middle East and North Africa racial classification (which will include Israeli and Mizrahi Jews, Turks, Persians, Arabs, Chaldeans, Kurds, Berbers and more; in fact, given the choice between white and MENA, as a Jew with close ancestral and familial ties to Israel, and no ties to Europe for over a hundred years, I’m going with white AND MENA, as will many Ashkenazi Jews. It’s totally, as I noted, incoherent).

Someone needs to sue to stop these changes. The first is meant to retard Hispanic assimilation by making them into a permanent racial class. The second is meant to settle the question as to whether Arab and Iranian Americans, historically considered white in the US, are really, as leftist activist groups want, “people of color” who can glom on to whatever benefits that status has.

If a lawsuit doesn’t work, a new Trump administration, which already rejected such proposals last time, should reverse them. And the goal should be to eventually largely eliminate government collection of data by race, as it’s often stupid and counter-productive, as, for example, with rules requiring medical researchers to use American racial classifications in their research that have no scientific basis.

Here’s the comment I submitted to OMB opposing turning Hispanic into a racial classification. And here’s the comment I submitted re the MENA classification.

HATRED OF ISRAEL MAKES PEOPLE LOSE THEIR RATIONAL FACULTIES: I’ve never thought that Nicholas Kristof is any sort of genius, but this is really embarrassing. Doing some quick math, that would be a line of about 415 miles of 18 wheelers, assuming no space between them. In what world did Kristof think this was possible?

UPDATE: Yes, the trucks on average might be smaller than 18 wheelers. But 30K of them is still impossible. Also, I should also note that Israel does not control Gaza’s border with Egypt, Egypt does. All the trucks lined up at the border have already been security-vetted by Israel. To the extent there is a much smaller backlog than 30K, the holdup is because of Egyptian/UN. slothfulness, not Israel.

GAME, SET, AND MATCH:

MORE MEDIA MALPRACTICE: The media has been repeating the pro-Hamas caucus’s claim that it achieved a great victor by getting 13.2% of Michigan Democrats to vote “Uncommitted.” Media coverage has been suggesting that all of these voters voted Uncommitted based on Biden’s refusal to force Israel to stop fighting Hamas. Almost no one bothered to look up what happened in Michigan the last time a Democratic president was running for re-election, Barack Obama in 2012. That year, Uncommitted received 10.7% of the vote, even though Obama was generally much more popular and inspirational to Democrats (and he also wasn’t pushing 80). So, likely only a small fraction of the 13.2% Uncommitted this year were specifically voting about Israel/Gaza. But the pro-Hamas folks ran a nice pr campaign and the media, wittingly or otherwise, went along with it.

DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH: Imagine being proud that your society’s terrorists come from all walks of life. It won’t surprise to learn that the tweet author is a Sociology professor at CUNY.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Starting a war and then losing it doesn’t make you a victim. It puts you in the same boat as Nazis. Whom the Palestinians resemble, except for competence.

NO ONE WILL EVER BE FREE UNTIL PALESTINIAN TERRORISTS CAN HIJACK PLANES WITH IMPUNITY: Here is someone who’s visa should be in the process of being revoked as we speak.

PRETTY MUCH SUMS UP MUCH THE LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY THAT PLAGUES OUR GOVERNMENT: Headline: Pentagon finds no one to blame for keeping Secretary Austin’s hospital stays secret.

LAUGHABLY BAD/MOTIVATED ‘JOURNALISM’: Several Arab American and an Iranian American groups have been lobbying for decades to get the US government to recognize a “Middle Eastern and North African” racial classification; currently, the US government classified Americans of MENA origin as “white.” The Biden administration has endorsed the change, and is currently reviewing comments on it (my comment opposing the change can be found here).

The Times apparently decided to join the campaign by conducting a survey of MENA Americans and how they identify. A methodologically sound survey would have found a randomly selected group of Americans with MENA descent, and surveyed them. Instead, the Times solicited responses on the Internet, and then contacted “community groups” (which likely did not include Israeli American or Mizrahi Jewish groups, both of which would be included in the new MENA classification) to find additional respondents. Some of these community groups are the same folks lobbying for a MENA classification, further distorting the results.

What would a methodologically sound survey have found? I don’t know. But here’s one data point from my book Classified: “In 2010, a coalition of Arab American groups sponsored an ad campaign urging their constituents to write in Arab on the census form, rather than checking the White box. The goal was to pressure the Census Bureau to add a MENA category on the next census. The tag line for the campaign was, “Check it Right! You Ain’t White.” Well over eighty percent of Arab Americans nevertheless checked the White box.”

WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT RIGHTS GROUPS: Israeli forces rescued two hostages held in a Rafah apartment building. During the rescue, they came under heavy fire from neighboring apartment buildings housing many additional terrorists. Israel called in airstrikes against said buildings. So, inevitably: “Rights groups condemned the airstrikes on Rafah.”

And by the way, this is why you should care about this sort of thing, even if you are wholly uninterested in Israel or the Middle East. These purported “rights groups” want to impose rules on Israel that would make it impossible for Israel to successfully fight terrorism. And then once these rules get imposed on Israel, that will be precedent to impose them on the US, NATO, etc., so that no one in the West will be able to successfully fight terrorism. A while back, I thought about writing a book on this, with a title something like “Canary in Coal Mine: The NGO’s War Against Israel.” Maybe I should consider it again.

I’M SURE SOME HAMAS FANS ARE VERY FINE PEOPLE: Jewish leaders slam White House for meeting with activist who defended Hamas, Hezbollah.

FIGHT BACK TWICE AS HARD: The pro-Hamas riots in major cities, such as the vandalism of businesses, and the blockage of roads, are illegal and can be predicate acts for civil lawsuits under RICO and other federal laws. I have two lawyer friends (both of whom I met during my undergrad days at Brandeis!) who are eager to bring such lawsuits, but they need victims to step forward and contact them.

NOW THEY TELL US: The New York Times and other major media outlets had sixteen years to report on the restrictions they faced in reporting in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Crickets. Today, though, we learn from the Times:

It doesn’t say anything good about the media’s integrity that we didn’t hear about this until now, when Hamas has almost totally lost control of Gaza.

WHY DON’T PEOPLE WHO EXPRESS GRAVE CONCERN ABOUT PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES CALL ON HAMAS TO RELEASE ITS HOSTAGES AND SURRENDER?: Because they don’t really care about Palestinian well-being. The allegedly “pro-Palestine” movement’s main objective is to destroy the State of Israel, for various reasons–antisemitism, Islamism, pan-Arabism, hatred of the West. The welfare of actual Palestinians is at best a secondary concern. This, among others things, is why you see virtually no voices who claim to be concerned with Palestinian well-being calling on Hamas to surrender. Hamas’s surrender would surely be good for the Palestinians. It would end the war and its attendant destruction, and it would mean that some new group would govern Gaza, and that new government could hardly be worse than the corrupt, Islamist, war-mongering dictatorship of Hamas. But, and here’s the key, Hamas’s surrender would also benefit Israel. And the “movement” is happy to sacrifice both immediate and long-term Palestinian well-being to harm Israel.

WHEN “HUMAN RIGHTS” ORGANIZATIONS ARE REALLY JUST ON THE OTHER TEAM: Human Rights Watch, once a reputable organization, has for many years hired only anti-Israel activists to work on Israel/Palestinian issues. The result has been predictable. HRW is not much of a fan of the United States, but it had to grudgingly acknowledge during the war against ISIS that hospitals, while protected by international law, are legitimate targets if they are used for military purposes and adequate warning is provided.

But there are special rules for Jews, umm, Israel. On Monday, HRW tweeted: Hospitals “must be safeguarded, especially during times of war. Doctors, nurses, and ambulances have to be permitted to do their work and be protected in all circumstances.” (emphasis supplied)

Those paying attention already knew that HRW, Amnesty, and similar groups had gone far left, international law be damned, on many issues. The sort of thing described above should be the final nail in their credibility coffin.

POLITICS MAKES STRANGE…: Abortion doulas for Palestine. Can’t make this stuff.

“ISLAMAPHOBIA?”: A Jewish student attending a pro-Israel rally sponsored by the campus Hillel was punched in the head and kicked in the stomach by a “pro-Palestinian” Turkish Muslim student. The attacker then grabbed the student’s sign and shredded it with a knife. The attacker was duly arrested. The university then issued a statement noting that the attacker’s conduct was “reprehensible, illegal, and unacceptable.” It then added, “Antisemitism, Islamophobia, or any form of bigotry have no place in our community.”

Some have criticized the university for “All Lives Mattering” the victim. But this is much worse. Imagine if after an attack on a black student by a racist white student, the university issued a statement condemning “anti-black racism and all other forms of bigotry.” That’s a version of All Lives Matter, but I don’t find it objectionable to condemn the specific bigotry and issue and then all other bigotry. Imagine instead, though, that the university condemned “anti-black racism, anti-white racism, and all other forms of bigotry.” Why would anyone specifically bring up anti-white racism after a white student attacked a black student? And that’s essentially what UMass did here. But it’s been a deranged progressive tick to be unable to condemn antisemitism without mentioning Islamophobia, regardless of the underlying circumstances.

Bonus?: The mom of the student in question says that she reached out to the university chancellor and “he didn’t care” and that the university has “provided little assistance” to her son while a professor is providing legal assistance to the attacker.

THIS IS AMERICA, AND THIS NEEDS TO BE STOPPED, NOW: Elderly Jewish Man Murdered by Mask-Wearing “Pro-Palestinian” Thug.

AND THIS IS WHY I CAN’T STAND GLENN GREENWALD: I know some folks have been pleased that Greenwald’s hatred for the American political establishment leads him to sometimes deviate from the left’s party line, but I’ve long noticed that he tends to make broad, provocative claims unsupported by the evidence. Today brings a good example: Putting aside that “Josh” isn’t calling for “extinguishing all life in Gaza,” Josh is some rando on X with 60 followers. Glenn cites this to support the claim that not just “Josh” but people at all pro-Israel rallies are calling for killing everyone in Gaza. But he doesn’t cite even one example from an actual pro-Israel rally, just one tweet from Rando Josh. This is typical.

THE WOKE DICTIONARY, ISRAEL-HAMAS EDITION: To follow the debate, you need to understand that words and phrases lose their ordinary meanings in favor of Orwellian ones when used by the woke. Thus:

Israeli occupation of Gaza before 10/7: Not a single Israeli soldier or civilian in Gaza

Indiscriminate bombing” Any bombing by Israel. Even the most precision bombing by Israel is always “indiscriminate.”

Innocent civilians: Any Palestinians, including armed terrorists.

The resistance: Armed terrorists.

Settlers: All Israelis.

Colonialists: See settlers.

Genocide: Any military action taken by Israel. Also, Israel just existing.

War Crime: See Genocide.

OUT: BRAGGING ABOUT GOING TO HARVARD; IN:

RACIAL CLASSIFICATION in Higher EDUCATION ADMISSIONS BEFORE AND AFTER SFFA: That’s the title of my forthcoming article, which you can download here. Some readers are old enough to remember when the “Hispanic” classification was “Mexican American” or “Spanish surname,” and when Asian Americans were sometimes eligible for affirmative action preferences in higher education, rather than facing discrimination. How and when did these things change? Read the article and find out.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE UNIVERSITIES ARE BEING RUN BY THE AUTHORITARIAN LEFT: Aaron Sibarium reports: “The only student on [Stanford] law school’s search committee, Matthew Coffin is the co-president of Stanford OutLaw, the LGBT student group that led efforts in March to disrupt a Federalist Society event featuring Fifth Circuit appellate judge Kyle Duncan.”

THE ANTISEMITISM IS CONSIDERED A FEATURE NOT A BUG: Wall Street Journal: Democrats Risk Long-Lasting Rift Over Israel-Hamas War

To liberal Jews devastated by scenes of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, the ensuing weeks have shattered illusions of solidarity, says Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and director of the Anti-Defamation League. College students and faculty, as well as local chapters of Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Socialists of America, have justified or even celebrated Hamas’s actions, while many others have emphasized the Palestinians’ plight and criticism of Israel over sympathy for the victims of the terrorist attacks.

“It has been an incredibly clarifying and terrifying moment at the same time for many progressive Jews,” Greenblatt said. “They’re calling me, tweeting, messaging, expressing shock and sadness that the people they marched with, the causes they marched for, have abandoned them in their hour of need.”

What left-leaning Jews Jews need to understand that the antisemitism they are seeing is partly but not solely ideological. While some Jews have drunk the far-left Kool-Aid, American Jews are an overall moderating influence on the left and the Democratic Party. In 2020, for example, Jewish Democrats supported Bernie Sanders at the lowest rate of just about any demographic, around 10%.

Jews were once much more drawn to the far left, but those days are gone—because Jews (and of course I’m generalizing here) thrive in meritocracy, because Jews are grateful to be Americans and see the US as a force for good in the world, because Jews can’t accept ideologically driven binaries that make Jews, in Israel and otherwise, into the inherent aggressors and because such binaries are secularized products of god/devil theology that is not part of Judaism, because societal instability is almost always bad for Jews, and because Jews are well-represented in the establishment that the far left wants to tear down.

So rather than try to extinguish antisemitism in their ranks, many on the far left want to fan it, to drive Jews out, so they can be replaced by Kendi-ites. The fact that Jews are repelled by antisemitism spewing from the far left is not a bug but a feature. It’s not a coincidence, for a while, that everyone of the “antiracist heroes” in Kendi and Reynolds’ Stamped: A Remix has a history of making antisemitic comments.

It might be possible to change people’s minds about ideology. But given that the far left thinks that the quest for political power runs through tossing all but the most extremist Jews from the movement, Jews need to understand that they are facing an implacable enemy, not the sincere but misguided. Once they recognize that, those who thought these folks were their “allies” should start to consider what else they got wrong…

I GUESS SOME PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW RIDUCLOUS THEY SOUND:

Well, we certainly don’t want “violence and extremism” to break out among Palestinians. That might lead to decades of terrorist violence, and the rejection of peace offers. Oh, wait.